Posts Tagged ‘corporate citizenship’

The new CSR Index from Boston College and Reputation Institute is out.  Katherine Smith, executive director of the Carroll School of Management Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, remarked, ”Reputation is now widely accepted as a valuable intangible asset for firms, and as such it is an aspect of business that is earning increasing interest and attention from the C-suite and board. It is an indicator of how strongly connected consumers are to a brand. The effectiveness of a company’s reputation management will influence the bottom line — in either a positive or negative manner.” A total of 285 companies were measured among the general public for their best corporate citizenship reputations in the U.S.

Interestingly, there was a decline in ratings (2011′s top rating of 80.59 vs. 82.67 in 2010) speaks to the higher expectations placed on companies and greater skepticism about business in general. The continuing scandals, CEO ousters, board malfeasance, strategic missteps, etc. is now placing an equally intense spotlight on integrity and governance issues as it does on corporate social responsbility.  Additionally, I have been asked more than once whether CSR is fading in importance as the economy sours and the world seems to be in one big funk.  My answer is that it is probably more important than ever that companies step in to make a difference and commit to creating a better world. I think that citizenship is tablestakes today.

Interested in building and protecting your corporate reputation? Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship , along with support from The Hitachi Foundation , issued its fourth 2009 State of Corporate Citizenship report. The report  provides valuable insights from nearly 800 U.S. senior executives about their attitudes and perceptions on the value of corporate citizenship. Rightfully so, the authors preface the report by describing the difficult year that faced senior executives and the high expectations about continuing their support of corporate responsibility and giving initiatives. The good news is that nearly half of the executives surveyed believe that corporate citizenship is even more important in tough times and kept up their corporate citizenship efforts. Boston College Center says that this finding underscores how corporate citizenship has passed the value test. What do executives mean when they report on corporate citizenship? To them there are three important areas — ethical business practices (91%), treating employees well (81%) and accurate financial management reporting (76%).

When it comes to reputation, we have known for some time that reputations are enhanced when a company’s words match its actions in the corporate responsibility space.  Also, Weber Shandwick’s Safeguarding Reputation research found that companies with better corporate citizenship track records recovered their reputations faster than those with poorer corporate citizenship records.

Interesting to me is that the survey found that CEOs are now leading the corporate citizenship agenda in three out of four companies. Understandably and not surprisingly, CEOs recognize that their reputations need improvement and corporate citizenship is one way to communicate to employees and other stakeholders that they are concerned about doing the right thing. The survey also identified REPUTATION as the number one driver of corporate citizenship (70% for all executives, 82% for large-company executives). Reputation shares that top spot for the first time with company traditions and values.

 Reputation is increasingly becoming a driving force in shaping company and leadership action. That can only be viewed as a positive. Glad to hear that senior executives agree.